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Viral Video

One thing we can all look forward to this fall and winter are the absolutely moronic perfume ads that get produced for each holiday selling season. There will be plenty of reuse from the ones that have been around for a couple of years, because they are always big budget affairs, and the manufacturer tries to get the most mileage out them as they can. One however, will be a breath of fresh air, even if they won’t be able to show it in its full 3-minute entirety on TV. That ad is the new Spike Jonze directed spot for Japanese perfume makerKenzo.

The online spot which has gathered more than 2 million views in the last 3 days, features hypnotic choreography as a young socialite Margaret Qualley, escapes the stale atmosphere of a formal gala to go nuts in the hallways of the empty building. The choreography was created by Ryan Heffington becomes a full blown rapturous explosion that you simply can’t look away from as Qually dances to the tune of “Mutant Brain” by Sam Spiegel, Jonze’s brother, and Ape Drums.

I love it, from the laser beams to the statue licking, to the contrast of the green dress against the desaturated color pallet, to the sheer insanity of it all. It’s as though Jonze looked at commercials like the one Dior produced and said, no more. And thank god he did.

Just because you saw it on the internet, and it looks real doesn’t mean that it is. However, if you put the right kind of fake content together though, you end up with a recipe for a successful viral video, and that is just exactly what Melbourne-based The Woolshed and Company did. With over 205 million views, I say Woolshed has found what works.

From shark attacks to lightning strikes, bears chasing snowboarders, to drones falling into Burning Man – the world watched, they shared and then they argued like hell over their authenticity. And it was this debate over authenticity that propelled each videos’ viral success.

The content series was envisioned as a social experiment to explore the creation and distribution of ‘new media’, with the process involving The Woolshed Co. strategizing, creating, releasing and then integrating the learnings into the next piece. We set out to better understand exactly how to create short-form, highly shareable, ‘snackable’ content, that is capable of reaching worldwide mass audiences without the luxury of pricey media buys, ad campaigns, publicity strategies or distribution deals.

The power of viral. The video below dropped less than a week ago on YouTube and it already has more than 36 million views. No it doesn’t use some magic formula, and no it wasn’t lucky. It went viral because it plays off of the genre of “unboxing” videos that are all over the internet, and because the production value of the video is rock solid. When combined with the Samsung brand, the nostalgia that surrounds some vintage tech, and the possibility that you might see some piece of unreleased gear, things get a bit nutty.

“From the release of the SH-100 mobile phone in 1988 to the first wristwatch phone. The World’s smallest TV phone to our first MP3 phone. We introduced the S Pen with the Galaxy Note series and paved the way for Phablets. We’ve even climbed mountains to make the first 3G call from Everest. Gone underwater to test the ability of the Galaxy S5 and curved glass to create the first dual edge screen smartphone.

Wherever there’s a barrier, we see it as an invitation to go further, together.

A few months back, I received an email from IKEA for the IKEA Home Tour contest. The team was coming to Kansas City and they were looking for entries. All you had to do was make a short video of your space in need and send it in. So, I busted out the iPhone shot some down and dirty footage of my sad basement office space, cut it together, sent it in and thought “That’ll be the end of that.” Much to my surprise, we made the finalists for the area, and to my surprise again, we are one of the two chosen. Today, the team arrived to shoot video, check out the space, and plan out what they are going to do with the space.

This post is not about the makeover though. It is about how IKEA continues to take excellent advantage of digital media as a marketing tool for the brand.

If you go out and look at the Home Tour site, you see a polished website that leverages video, a blog, social media, product placement, and tips to extend the IKEA brand. With each short video, product that is used in the redesign is featured and linked back the IKEA page where the product lives. The Pinterest section leads back the dedicated Pinterest board where recipients have posted their images as well as the team, and there are hooks to related boards, all of which drives back to product and enforcing the IKEA brand. The design blog takes you to a curated section with short right ups and videos from the Home Tour teams progress. And then there are the videos.

Video is the fast growing consumed media on the web, your phone, and in other digital spaces. It has rapidly taken over because of its ability to tell a story in a short digestible bite, and the ability to link back to longer form content if needed. In addition, with prices on gear falling, the availability of high end editing software, a DIY maker movement, and the ease of sharing content, it is possible for a skeleton crew to put together a solid bit of video work that has tremendous impact. The crew at my house today consisted of 5 people. 2 of them were producing the video. This is the same crew on every makeover, doing each shoot. They have a limited budget, and tie frame, but they are creating solid work with definite reach and penetration for the IKEA brand, which brings me back to the fact that IKEA gets digital marketing better than most. I’ve posted a number of articles on what I KEA is doing in the digital space and this is just one more.

To date the team has produced 203 video segments according to the numbering on the site. Pretty impressive when you think about it. 203 videos that average 3 minutes in length. 203 videos that show the problem, the fix, and then go through and talk about the IKEA product used. Think of it as a long form commercial that is less about in your face selling, and more about how IKEA helps you solve a problem.

That is a winning marketing solution and another winner from IKEA’s marketing division.

Volvo trucks are back with a new round of YouTube based advertising. This time they have given up celebrity for a 4 year old girl driving a giant dump truck with a remote control. What’s the purpose of an ad? Be memorable in terms of both product and brand, sell the attributes of said product. What does this ad do? Nails it. This is one of the funnest YouTube commercials I have seen in a while. The kid is priceless, as well as some of the adults behind her. I would love to see a making of video on this. I’d love to know how many takes, and whether or not they went through multiple trucks to get this made. Great fun from Volvo. Judging by the almost 400,000 views since it dropped, I’d say this ad is a success.

In less than 30 days IKEA is opening here in the Kansas City area. The city has been trying to get an IKEA store for years, so the hype around the grand opening has been pretty hot. I’m a fan of IKEA but I won’t be going to the new store until the hype wears off a bit, and massive crowds settle down. That doesn’t mean I’m not paying attention to the clever IKEA marketing ideas that the company continues to roll out though. About a week ago IKEA launched a new campaign called “The IKEA Time Travel Experiments” as an online video series. The series features customers that get hypnotized and then interact with actors that represent the future.

The two videos below show the trailer, and episode 1 that launched on August 20th. In episode 1 a couple is taken 12 years into the future. The overall theme of the campaign is to try and create an engaging form of entertainment, that captures and holds the online audience, hopefully getting them to engage by clicking through to the IKEA site at the end. With over 200,000 views in a week, the campaign has the potential to go viral. What would be interesting to see is how many people go to an IKEA store in hopes of becoming a participant, or witnessing this live.

For the new Sky eries “Penny Dreadful” Beakus director Gergely Wootsch has created an animated short that features some really nice animation that takes inspiration from the origin ofMarry Shelly’s 1818 novel “Frankenstein”. The animation is dark, atmospheric, and captures the mood of the book. Matthew Sweet’s narration guides the viewer through the back story of the book, it’s origin, and aspects of the monster that many who haven’t read the book, probably don’t know. “Penny Dreadful” is a major drama series on Sky created by John Logan and starring Josh Hartnett, Timothy Dalton, Eva Green and Billie Piper. The animation was released as an exclusive on The Guardian.